The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1887-12-22
FARMING IN JAPAN.
The Small Proportion of the Country Gull
tivated and Comparative Comfort OF
the People.

u Il
/ at running town. One feels the
! same way about the farmers. Every
/ thing is on such small scale and is
carried on with such wonderful nice
ness that one can scarcely realize that
4 farming here is the business of life,
( and a very earnest and hard business
al that. There are no such things as
4 farm-houses; all live IN villages or
/ towns. There are no such things as
1 barns or out-houses in which to store
crops. Many farms are not one acre
in size, and comparatively few over
1 ten acres.
| On one of these little holdings the
! farmer will have his rice field and a
! dozen other crops. Everything is
| grown by irrigation. Although it
rains so much, no one relies upon nat
ural waterings. Everywhere there are
irrigating bitches. The little fields
are each perfectly level. A farm of
| two or three acres will have half
/ dozen levels. In the fat valleys they
all appear nearly the same, but in the
upper valleys, on rolling grounds, or
on the hill or mountain sides, each
field is a terrace to itself. In the lat
! ter the fields are of all shapes. often
only a half-dozen feet wide, zig-zag,
rounding, and in every imaginable
! shape to suit the CONFORMATION of the
land, so that each field is perfectly
| level. The water irrigating one field
drops down to irrigate those below.
The farms all look like the market
| gardens near our cities. The pillow is
used only in few localities, and then
not for loosening the soil but to throw
up beds. saw the first one to-day
near this place. All ground is dry
and perfectly prepared. The spade
and fork are unknown, but spade-like
hoes and forks do all the digging.
| Not a weed is ever seen, and not a
foot of ground is wasted. Between
the rice patches the little ridges which
| confine the flooding waters are planted
in peas or some other crop.
The land is all double cropped. In
May the wheat and barley is harvest
| ed. Immediately follows rice, corn,
millet, or something else. One sees
rice, sweet potatoes, eggplant, millet
| of several varieties, turnlps, carrots,
tarro, beans, cotton, lilies, squash,
| sesamum, maize or Indian corn, buck
wheat, hemp. flax for white cordage,
sugar cane, dishrag plant, tea plant,
| indigo, mulberry, pear trees and many
other varieties of food crops side by
side in little tiny fields and in all
stages of maturity. In the large, low
| lying river valleys the rice fields are
apparently of great extent, but on
! close observation one sees that even
| here few fields are much over one
eighth to one-quarter of An acre in
size.
In one locality l saw tea plantations
of good many acres, the possessions
of single man. But these are eX-
ceptional. saw rice being harvested
near Toxic a month ago, and yet even
in this locality, where it is warmer,
| the bulk of the crop is not yet ready
| for the sickle. October is the regular
harvest month for this great staple.
! 1t is the great crop of the country.
| Formerly all rents were paid in rice.
All lands belong to the government;
the farmer pays so much of the crop
in lieu of taxes. Under the new and
better system of government all rents,
4. c. taxes, are paid in money. Form
erly comparatively few daimios held
the entire country in fief, paying to
the government so many sacks OF rice.
They let the land to the tenants, tithing
| everything, and virtually owned the
masfes. The daimios are now thing
of the past, and tenants pay fixed
rents to persons who rent tracts of
| greater or less size. The farmer now,
although he is bound down in abiect
poverty. neither feels like nor has the
air of il slave.
Lands are fortified to some extent
by application of solid manures, but
the great dependence is upon them in
a liquid form. Everything is saved
that can be made to enrich the crop;
all rich sell is carefully preserved.
COnvenienCes are erected along the
highways and byways, SO as to pre-
! vent any waste. Coarse grass and
refuse straw is burned and the ashes
mixed in the watts. Deep holes are
sometimes simply sunk in the ground,
put more generally pits walled with
| stone or wood are sunken near every
field. Into this the manure is depos-
| tied to pen and perfect itself. Men,
{ boys and women then carry it in pals
| on the two ends of a bearing pole over
| the shoulders to the fields, and with
It water the growing crops. When one
meets one of these liquid manure car
rierS on the road it is safe TO hold ones
nose until the windward has been
| gained. Women and men on their
| knees weed the fields as at home we
weed a tiny flower bed
As one crop begins to ripen some
other crop is planted between the
| rows, so as to get good start before
| the outgoing crop has been removed.
Even on the tea plantations. when con.
| sisting of small pants, have turnips,
| tarro and other crops been planted be-
tween the rows rs soon as the July
| plucking is finished.
The people seem to be scientifically
| skilled in the rotation of crops, and
| land which has been in cultivation for
| centuries yet produces marvelously
large crop returns. This year the peo-
| pie viii be we'll Off The rice crop is
said to be almost unprecedented in
the largeness of the yield. This is the
one great food crop for the Japanese.
| Rice, fish and roots they live on; meat
they rarely ever taste. They eat the
I roots of several of the lilies, which in
| America grow for Ornameptation. The
water lily and lotus is cultivated to a
/ great extent where the lands are low
| and can not be drained.
| The population of Japan is about
$4,000, 600 and is supported on IL. 600.
| 900 acres of cultivated lands, and eX-
| ported last year of the products of this
1 100000 acres s2l, 000,0 of silk,
1 nearly IS, 600. 600 of teas, and nearly
| 3, 500, 600 of rice. The export of rice
| was almost if not entirely to China.
{ 1f her teas exported over $4,000, O0C
| went ID the United States.
Rice is ali iraDsplanted by hand, the
1 rows are from seven TO ten inches
| apart, and are in exact checks. Her
| people certainly deserve much for their
| wonderful industry, and nature has
\ been very lavish in her favors. The
| waters have a boundless supply of fish.